Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2019 i Australian HiFi

One of the best advertising slogans I have ever heard was for a JBL loudspeaker (the JBL Sovereign II). The slogan? ‘If a JBL sounds expensive to you, there’s a reason: It’s expensive.*’ That slogan was so good that even though it was first coined back in the 60s (which was when I first saw it in an advert), JBL has recently recycled the self-same slogan in some of its most recent advertisements. I am not sure if that slogan is quite so effective in the modern day, because whereas back in the 60s and 70s, JBL made some of the most expensive loudspeakers you could buy, a prime example being the JBL D44000, better known as the Paragon (Google it!), these days JBL’s most expensive offerings are not even…

Readers interested in a full technical appraisal of the performance of the B&W DB1D Subwoofer should continue on and read the LABORATORY REPORT published on the following pages. Readers should note that the results mentioned in the report, tabulated in performance charts and/or displayed using graphs and/ or photographs should be construed as applying only to the specific sample tested. Newport Test Labs measured the frequency response of the B&W DB1D after calibration, and with the low-pass filter set to 150Hz plus a 12dB/octave filter slope, the result of which is shown in Graph 1. You can see that the response is amazingly flat across the pass-band, essentially measuring from 15Hz to 200Hz ±1dB. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a subwoofer with such a flat response. I also don’t…

If you love analogue sound, then you will be prepared to bear the burdens of analogue equipment, including the careful handling of discs, cleaning (possibly) of records, inspections of styli and all that. But if you’ve gone digital, some or all of the time, then you can make that wonderfully convenient simply by using a network streamer. Cambridge Audio has one as part of its CX range, but it also has a higher-level model as part of its Azur series: the Azur 851N Network Player/DAC/Preamp, here reviewed. THE EQUIPMENT With the Cambridge Audio series, what most matters in the model number is the very last character. ‘N’, as in Azur 851N, is for network player. ‘D’ is for DAC, ‘C’ is for CD player. A (integrated amp), E (pre-amp) and…

I have a number of difficulties with the Gamut Hi Fi Lobster Chair and none of them involve it looking like a lobster. Being a pedant, my major difficulty is that it’s billed as ‘the world’s first music listening chair’ which it most patently is not. I sat in the first music listening chair I ever tried in the late 1960s. It was a big, egg-shaped thing (think of Agent Jay filling out the test paper in Men in Black) with built- in speakers pointing to about where your ears would be if you were of average height and weight. It swivelled. Other than having fun whizzing whoever was in it around in circles it was crap. It failed the hi-fi test (the speakers probably added less than a dollar…

Newport Test Labs measured the frequency response of the JBL L100 Classic as 34Hz to 20kHz ±3.5dB, which is an excellent result, though it does not begin to approach JBL’s own specification of 40Hz to 40kHz –6dB. The graph of this response is shown in Graph 1, and you can see that over a more restricted bandwidth (50Hz to 10kHz) the response is an even-flatter ±2.5dB. Importantly, there’s no spectral skew, so the plus/minus dB variations are spread right across the response… though the response does fall away at the very highest frequencies. The extended low-frequency response is worth making special mention of, though given the size of the bass driver, and the fact that it’s fitted in a large bass-reflex environment also means that it should not be a…

Sony produces equipment covering just about as wide an affordability gamut as any company, and this STR-DH790 is one of its lowest-priced multi-channel AV receivers, so let’s see what features have been selected for inclusion and exclusion, given the $849 price-point. THE EQUIPMENT The Sony STR-DH790’s seven channels are organised with sufficient flexibility to allow you to bi-amp the front stereo pair of speakers, or drive rear surround speakers or a pair of height speakers for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, both of which are supported. There are couple of compromises. First, you need to stick with speakers of at least 6 nominal impedance in order to protect your warranty. Second, all but the front left and right channels use spring-clip connections, not binding posts. They accept cable up to about…

It all began at the 1968 Hi-Fi Show in the Hotel Russell, Bloomsbury, London. I was sales manager at Mullard Electronics Limited where work was proceeding to mass-produce solid-state products for industry. Previously the company had built its reputation for making valves (vacuum tubes) used in radio communication during the war and, increasingly, in post-war domestic radios and audio amplifiers. At the Show, listening to British brands such as Leak and comparing them to amplifiers from America (such as Marantz) roused my interest in high-fidelity music reproduction in the home. I splashed out on an Akai open-reel tape recorder, a Leak valve amplifier and a pair of Wharfedale speakers and I was smitten! In 1969 my wife Gisela and I emigrated ‘down under’ as ten pound Poms where I worked…

Robert ‘Bob’ Metzler, co-founder of Audio Precision and the author of The Audio Measurement Handbook has died, aged 84. Born on July 28, 1934 in Plymouth, Indiana, to John and Margaret, Metzler, along with his brother John and his sister, Helen, attended Nappanee Elementary and High School. After graduation, Metzler was working as the Chief Engineer/DJ for Manchester College’s radio station in Indiana where he met his wife Violet Borkholder, whom he married in 1954. The newly-married couple moved to Puerto Rico where they both worked for the Brethren Volunteer Service before moving back to the USA, first to California and then back to Indiana, during which time Metzler worked as an engineer/DJ for several radio stations including W9MKF, KP4ACB, W4TNI, and W7MDL and also completed a degree in physics…

It seems difficult to credit that an amplifier/DAC/streamer… or, as Italian manufacturer Gold Note prefers to describe it, a ‘complete all-in-one super integrated amplifier’, could offer so many features, and have only a single control on the front panel, yet be so simple to operate. Yet it is. You need only spend a few minutes with the front panel knob (which Gold Note would prefer was called an ‘SKC’ (it stands for ‘Single Knob Control’) and the superb colour front panel display to realise Gold Note has really nailed the user interface. Who needs a manual when the product is so easy to use? (But you get a manual anyway, both hard-copy and on-line on Gold Note’s website.) But in creating a ‘jack of all trades’ component, has Gold Note…

Fact. The DB1D is the most powerful active subwoofer B&W has ever made. And if that fact doesn’t get your blood racing, how about that it has a low-frequency response that stretches down below 9Hz, as well as the ability to comfortably generate a sound pressure level of 92dBSPL across the pass band with negligible distortion? THE EQUIPMENT If you know something about subwoofers, you’re probably wondering how B&W manages high SPLs, low distortion and extended low-frequency performance simultaneously, since the three are usually mutually exclusive, as in if you optimise any two, you can’t expect the third. When you see a DB1D in the flesh, and read the spec sheet, you’ll immediately know how B&W managed it. First, the cabinet is not exactly small! (It’s not exactly large, either,…

Readers interested in a full technical appraisal of the performance of the Sony STR-DH790 7.2-channel AV receiver should continue on and read the LABORATORY REPORT published on the following pages. Readers should note that the results mentioned in the report, tabulated in performance charts and/or displayed using graphs and/or photographs should be construed as applying only to the specific sample tested. Measuring the power output of the Sony STR-DH790 proved a little problematical because Sony has built in an automatic circuit to prevent the output devices from overheating. This means that the power output of the amplifier is completely dependent on the temperature of the rather small heatsink inside the unit. This heatsink relies on passive radiation—it is not fan-cooled. When this heatsink’s temperature is lower than 25°C, Newport Test…

The Australian Hi-Fi & AV Show, which returned to Melbourne in 2018 after being held in Sydney in 2017, had quite a few surprises in store—the biggest being that it took place just four days after the Melbourne International Hi-Fi Show. CAMBRIDGE AUDIO The new Cambridge Edge A integrated amplifier made its appearance for the first time in Australia at the show, and it’s not your average integrated amplifier. For a start, it has opposing symmetrical twin toroidal transformers, not only to provide purer power to each channel, but also to cancel electromagnetic interference. Cambridge’s UK engineers have also eschewed Class-D designs and stuck with traditional Class-AB, but with very high-bias, so the amplifier operates in Class-A to higher-than-usual power output levels. As well as all the conventional analogue inputs…

Newport Test Labs’ tests of the Gold Note IS-1000 showed that it met its 125-watt power output specification into 8 loads only when driving an 8 load at the 1kHz test frequency, and only when one channel was being driven. When both channels were driven, as per the Australian standard for testing the power output of audio amplifiers, the Gold Note IS-1000 returned test results of 100-watts per channel into 8 and 150-watts per channel into 4 , at frequencies of 1kHz and higher. With a 20Hz test signal, the both-channels-driven power output was measured by Newport Test Labs as being 85-watts into 8 loads and 132-watts into 4 . The frequency response of the Gold Note IS-1000 was well-extended at high frequencies, with Newport Test Labs measuring it as…